Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/241

 lead but in gold, in which combination both are more beautiful, thus should knowledge be joined not to immorality but to virtue, when each will add adornment to the other. For the fear of the Lord, as it is the beginning and the end of wisdom, is also the coping-stone and crown of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. i. and elsewhere).

18. Since, therefore, a man’s whole life depends on the instruction that he has received during boyhood, every opportunity is lost unless the minds of all are then prepared for every emergency that may arise in life. Just as in his mother’s womb each man receives his full complement of limbs,—hands, feet, tongue, etc.—although all men are not to be artificers, runners, scribes, or orators; so at school all men should be taught whatever concerns man, though in after life some things will be of more use to one man, others to another.